The debate over Toyota's Tundra over-eagerness (and subsequent production juggling) got me thinking of the above quote from management guru Peter Drucker. And that reminded me… Whenever someone ridicules TTAC's GM Death Watch for cresting a particular episodic number, I ask them to imagine the count if I'd started writing when GM began its decline. For proper mind boggling, cast your mind back to 1946. After spending two years inside GM, management Drucker published "Concept of the Corporation." Although Drucker's tome praised GM's infrastructure, the author suggested that the automaker should decentralize power to autonomous business units. GM Chairman Alfred P. Sloan's inability to grasp the implications of Drucker's recommendations marked the beginning of the end for what was once the world's most profitable business. It took more than half a century for GM's fundamental cultural weaknesses to drag it into today's ignominy. And the slouch towards Bethlehem was not inevitable. Or was it? "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." This GM's CEOs have not done for many, many years. And that's the truth.
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On vaguely the same subject, I remember hearing at one time that for the cost of building the Saturn unit, GM could have bought Toyota. Any truth to this claim?
When one looks at GM and compares the past to the present as you suggest, GM is already dead.
alexeck…
Once upon a time, I had the opportunity to delve into Saturns numbers. I don’t know if, at the time, they could have bought Toyota. What I do know is that for Saturn to earn a suitable return GM was relying on such a unlikely convergence of good luck one can only marvel at their self-delusion.
I’d love to see a retrospective death watch on the GM10 program. Up until that point, GM was ill, but deteriorating slowly. The GM10 program was like getting a drug resistant infection that ages a person 10 years in 2 months.
Only the top of the line Touring model Odyssey comes with the PAX tires, and its now optional. The LX and EX models come with a spare located under the middle row of seats.
Nick R:
Those GM10 cars are awful, just plain weird in terms of proportion, styling, build quality, materials – EVERYTHING. 1st Generation Lumina anyone? (Even the name was stupid.) You still see them once and awhile yet and its no wonder GM lost another generation of buyers forever.
It has nothing to do with what GM had bought or owned. Is the wrong Modus Oparandi.
Is like a richly spiled kid who gets bored with a new toy in 10 mins. Instead of the battery died he would throw away the whole toy instead of see if the batt was infact dead.
Heard yrs ago, alot of Europeans will go to Saudi Arabia to look for unloved nice cars or trucks. A small accident or malfunction will send the car truck to the junk pile. These smart EU folks will pick them up for almost nothing brought them home for an insane profit.
GM ralely have any patience to improve the product. Look at the MR2 and Fiero although both fot hem were not produced now. But MR2 was continually improved sold like hot cakes, but not the Fiero, production was cut when it fell to 5,000.
“one can only marvel at their self-delusion.”
That’s the central problem with the current team. Only a few months ago one of the GM mouthpieces said something on the order of “we’re banking on it” where ‘it’ was the US economy turning around in the last half of the year and truck/SUV sales returning to or near their former level. Ditto for the Volt.
“Those GM10 cars are awful”
And yet Motortrend named the Grand Prix their Car of the Year for ’88.
If you want to read a predecessor of the Death Watch series, check out this 1992 piece from Fortune magazine. (p.s. It is way more than 800 words :) )
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1992/11/16/77137/index.htm
Motortrend also named the Renault Alliance a COTY as well as the 74 mustang.
The real decline started in 1962, the year GM’s market share peaked, and VW sold its millionth car in the US. A dizzy array of overlapping models of all sizes of cars from every division except maybe Cadillac and GMC followed. An example I remember is that a fully-optioned Caprice in the late 1960’s retailed for more than a base Cadillac.